Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger Joe Calloway, author of “Keep It Simple,” “Magnetic,” and several other game-changing business books. We hope you enjoy Joe’s wisdom and perspective.

There are common threads woven through winning companies and top individual performers. There are also common threads woven through the mediocre and the struggling.

When I talk with people in companies that are not doing well, they will invariably tell me how complicated their business is, how different it is from other businesses, and that they “have a thousand things to do” each and every day.

Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger, David Mann, Managing Partner at The Firefly Group. We hope you enjoy David’s wisdom and perspective.

About a year ago, I had the opportunity to introduce The Firefly Group and our team to a room of 200+ talented, inspiring, go getters who are making a positive difference in the world. It is always my desire to deliver my message in a way that hits its mark, but with this particular group I had an increased desire to leave a positive impression as we had recently formalized our partnership and were meeting the broader team for the first time.

At the end of my introductory remarks I was asked several questions. I was feeling pretty good until someone asked - "Tell us your firm's core values?" Embarrassingly, with a deer in the headlights expression on my face and my mind going completely blank, I looked at the person asking the question and had to admit that I could not name a single one of them. Spending the next couple of days ruminating on this experience, I continued to ask myself - do our core values actually mean anything or are they just something we tell people we have and hang on the wall? If I can't name them, how in the world could I possibly be living by any of them?

Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger, Andrew Wiand, Executive Director of enFocus, Inc. We hope you enjoy Andrew’s wisdom and perspective.

I’m sure every leader has felt something similar: I want my staff to have autonomy and inspiration to think outside of the box, but we also need to focus on the task at hand. Freedom and responsibility are core aspects of high performance, but there is a certainly a balance required to ensure that employees are staying focused on the critical tasks to complete necessary efforts while also producing the ideas the company can capitalize on in the long term.

There are many answers to this riddle across organizations, varied by type of business, type of job, and leadership philosophy. At the same time, there are many organizational models for creating innovative ideas; from “thinktank” spaces to design thinking exercises to newly formed innovation groups that are specifically designed to dream up the next wave of products and services for the company.

Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger, Nancy Owsianowski, President of RoundTable Consulting, LLC. We hope you enjoy Nancy’s wisdom and perspective.

I recently read that Warren Buffet spends 80% of his day reading and thinking. Can you imagine—80% of his day?!

According to Buffett, all of that reading and thinking is what has built his knowledge base, providing for less impulsive decision making in his business. In this world of go, go, go, most of us do not have the luxury to spend that much of our day this way. However, many high-profile CEOs also schedule thinking time into their calendars. In fact, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong makes his executives spend 10 percent of their day just thinking. Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn, schedules two hours of uninterrupted thinking time per day. While it may seem indulgent, in reality, they use that time to come up with new ideas, brainstorm ways to overcome challenges, set goals, and organize their ideas.

“In my whole life, I have known no wise people - over a broad subject matter area - who didn’t read all the time. None. Zero.” – Charlie Munger, Vice Chairman, Berkshire Hathaway

When Tom Peters, author of The Excellence Dividend, speaks of reading, he’ll often label it as the “#1 deficit in CEOs.” For all the talk about how much successful CEOs do read, it may not be enough. Said Peters in a 2016 interview: “I like to think I’m a half step ahead of the pack. But about three years ago, with all the crap that’s going on, particularly with technology, I realized that I was 25 steps behind.”

Reading books is such an important tool to learn new things but also to test your understanding and beliefs. “I love them because they help us understand that we are not the brightest people in the world, and there are 80 million things to trip over when we’re making decisions,” Peters added.

Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger, Brad Duncan, Branch Manager and AVP at Centier Bank. We hope you enjoy Brad’s wisdom and perspective.

Since I was a child, I have always admired great teams. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of the 1985 Celtics, 1996 Bulls, or the 2018 Golden State Warriors? Unfortunately, I was not born to be a basketball player, but I have always strived to lead others. I believe the thing we forget is that leadership should not just be associated with a CEO, CFO, or Executive Director, it should be something you desire in every individual that touches your organization. Leadership comes in layers and each layer makes the organization better. When you add a player to a basketball team, that team gets better or worse depending on who is added or subtracted. Business is no different as each employee makes their mark on your company.

Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger, Jennifer Magley, Coach, Public Speaker, Author, and Entrepreneur. We hope you enjoy Jennifer’s wisdom and perspective.

Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger, Kyle DeFur, President of trueU. We hope you enjoy Kyle’s wisdom and perspective.

One of our star leaders, we’ll call him Bob, sat across from me in my office asking some very direct questions about the degree of his job security in our company. I was president of the organization and our parent company had just recently announced our organization was being acquired by a much larger company. All the questions about the implications of this acquisition were running through Bob’s head. “I have a family to support and I need to know if my job is at risk of being eliminated”, he stated. “I trust you and I need you to be honest with me regarding my status so I can make the best decision for me and my family.”

Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger, Adam Weber, Co-Founder and VP of Sales for Emplify. We hope you enjoy Adam’s wisdom and perspective.

Over the years, I’ve talked with hundreds of executives and people leaders about employee engagement, company culture, and leadership. Based on those conversations, it’s become clear to me that there are two very distinct types of leaders...let’s think of them as the old school executive and the modern leader.

The biggest difference between the old school executive and the modern leader is how they view their employees and their expectations for their workforce. Here are two statements to illustrate these very different mindsets:

Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are the “purest manifestations of business excellence” according to business guru Tom Peters. “I love SMEs. They create the jobs and are responsible for most of the innovation in our country.”

It’s true. Small businesses, those with less than 500 employees, account for roughly half of private-sector employment. And since the Great Recession, SMEs have accounted for 67% of the net new jobs in the US.